


boys of summer

by orphan_account



Category: Young Justice (Cartoon)
Genre: (i deny the existence of season two mostly), F/M, Gen, Original Team, season one
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-16
Updated: 2013-03-16
Packaged: 2017-12-05 11:10:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,699
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/722577
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If you had told Wally West that he would start his senior year with Artemis Crock under his arm, he would have laughed you out the door. (a summer camp au)</p>
            </blockquote>





	boys of summer

**Author's Note:**

> for the ever lovely brella's ficathon on lj. the prompt was

If you had told Wally West that he would start his senior year with Artemis Crock under his arm, he would have laughed you out the door. In the same vein, if you had tried to explain to Conner Kent that he would start his senior year with a crew of friends and a sweetheart, you would have awoken in a hospital bed. But life’s funny like that, as the six counselors at Watchtower Summer Camp would find out.

“Watch it,” someone barked at Wally. He turned to see a girl glaring at him from behind a pair of aviators. Instinctively, he prepared a comeback. You see, the girl, while lovely and blonde and a fairly decent person, had made the fatal mistake of teasing Wally during freshman year. Somehow the pair had become enemies from that point – much to the amusement of Zatanna and Dick, Artemis and Wally’s best friends, respectively. Zatanna constantly, and accurately, teased Artemis that the tension was not truly hate but something else entirely – the rest she left unsaid aside from an eyebrow waggle. Dick merely snickered and kept mum, mostly out of self-preservation.

“They’re letting you near children?” Wally asked. Artemis raised one side of her mouth, a sign he knew – because, these two knew each other far too well – to mean she was not impressed by the comment. “I mean, remember sophomore year? You don’t even know nursery rhymes.”

“I didn’t realize fifth and sixth graders needed nursery rhymes. But it is sweet that you remembered,” Artemis smiled cheekily. Before Wally could stammer out a reply, a familiar car pulled up. Wally sped to meet it.

“Dick! Thank God and also Jesus, I was stuck with the harlot and-“ Wally broke off, as what he saw caught up with his mind. Because, shockingly only to those completely oblivious, which we must admit, included Wally, Dick had been harboring a crush on Zatanna. In fact, this crush was reciprocated. After a rather eventful trip to the local pool – a long story for another day, but a damned good one – the pair had discovered this. Thus, they had ridden up to camp together. In fact, as poor Wally came around to them, their fingers sat laced beside the gear shift. Upon seeing this, Wally took offense at the secrecy and stomped back to Artemis.

“Did you know?” He motioned angrily to the car. From the car, the pair hopped out sheepishly. Dick attempted an explanation, but Wally ignored it. Artemis shook her head.

“It’s not that big a deal, Wallace,” Artemis said, but the words came out hollow. She swallowed and pushed the sunglasses back up her nose before turning away from the group. As she walked to her cabin, the sound of Dick apologizing a rather unwanted accompaniment.

* * *

 

Megan Morse was glad to move in with her uncle. Her uncle lived in a nice suburb, and her parents and sisters basically overlooked her. Except for some reason her uncle had insisted she get a summer job and by the time she got to Happy Harbor most of them were taken. So Megan had to widen the search and found a summer camp about forty minutes away. Perhaps it was fate, or perhaps Megan was just a lucky girl, but this camp accepted her job application and even assisted her in finding a ride to the camp. A boy, who would later become rather important to her but as of yet was merely a name in an email, would pick her up and drive her to camp. When a beat-up sedan pulled up, Megan chipperly shouldered her duffel and ran out to meet it.

“I’m Megan! You must be Conner, it’s so nice to meet you. Have you worked at the camp before? I’m excited for it, but I hope everyone doesn’t know each other from school or camp. I mean, I’ll go to the same school as most of you, or so Mr. Red said in the email and…” Megan trailed off and smiled. All the while as she spoke, she merely leaned in the car window, growing more nervous with each second. She swallowed when the boy did not reply. “I’m sorry, I talk when I’m…I should slow down, right?”

Conner shrugged in response before leaning over to open the door. Megan stepped back, rather awkwardly, to maneuver around the door. As she sat down, she arranged the duffel on her lap. Conner pulled away from the curb, windows still rolled down.“There’s no air conditioner. So I leave the windows down,” he explained point-blank. Megan nodded and looked at the boy. He opened his mouth several times before speaking again. “I do know them from school. But I don’t have friends so you don’t need to worry about it.”

“Oh,” Megan fiddled with her bag. After a moment, she turned back to him. “We could be. Friends, I mean. So it isn’t awkward for either of us.”

A stressful moment passed. If Conner had reacted differently, waited longer, not seen that hopeful look on her face from the corner of his eye, things could have been much different. Perhaps there would not even be a story. But, as it was, Conner saw the prettiest girl who had ever deemed him worthy of a conversation, staring at him with something like hope in her eyes.

“Sure, I guess,” he mumbled.

* * *

 

“None of them are speaking,” the head counselor explained as Megan and Conner joined the group in the mess hall. Campers were due to arrive in two days and it had been Mr. Red’s genius idea to let the counselors settle in prior. The head counselor was Kaldur, a genial guy who was headed to a state college on a swim scholarship in the fall. For the most part, he kept out of the affairs of the other counselors, leaving him to be somewhat inconsequential in our tale. Now this was rather tragic as Kaldur was a very interesting man and despite his calm nature, ran around with Artemis’s troublemaking older sister and Roy Harper, a boy who spent most of his time complaining or plotting. At the camp, he was forced into the role of den mother.

“But I’ll speak to you babe,” Wally winked up at Megan. Everyone else in the room scoffed in disgust.

“Don’t be a pig, Wally,” Artemis commented, rolling her eyes. She looked at Megan. “That’s Wally, resident would-be flirt and grudge-holder. I’m Artemis. The other two are Dick and Zatanna, who are apparently in love.”

From her introductions came several plaintive cries. In fact, a near brawl broke out between Artemis and Wally before Kaldur interceded. By the time they had all calmed down, Megan had seated herself across from Artemis, who fell back into her spot with a huff.

“I’m Megan. That’s Conner,” Megan motioned up to the boy, who nodded stoically. Artemis’s eyes darted between the pair.

“Are you two dating too?” She asked plainly. Megan squawked as her cheeks burned.

“No,” Conner answered. The skin on the back of Megan’s neck prickled at his response, so forcefully said, as if he needed to fully flatten the argument. Artemis’s eyebrow raised and she muttered a small ‘oh’, before openly raking her eyes up and down Conner.

“So you hitting on the new kid isn’t creepy, but it is when I do it?” Wally asked, indignant across the room. Dick snorted and his friend turned on him.

“Why do either of you care who the other is hitting on?” Zatanna pointed out, lolling across the bench next to Dick.  Both Artemis and Wally began their old arguments, well-versed on the subject from three years of being the butt of jokes on the subject. Megan felt a bit uncomfortable at the sight of it – the familiarity between the four.

“I thought you said they weren’t talking,” Conner commented to Kaldur. Kaldur shrugged, as if the entire matter was out of his hands at this point. Conner snorted. “Those must have been better times.”

* * *

 

Artemis had been planning to sit at the dock alone with her thoughts. Yet, Wally had the same thought. As he walked down the creaking dock, he was rather surprised to find Artemis laying on her back at the end of it. He paused, considering his options. Now, if he had been a less decisive person, he would have paused and Artemis would have snipped at him and things would have played out very differently. Or perhaps not, because maybe life has a way of course correcting. Regardless, Wally was very decisive and made the choice to flop next to the girl, who sighed heavily. Wally rolled to his side, facing her.

“Don’t stare Wally. I know you’ll never be this close to a girl again, but-“

“Why do you hate me?” Wally interrupted. Artemis startled at the question. She opened her mouth to answer, then shut it. Then she let out a sharp huff of a laugh.

“Hate’s not the right word for it, Wall-Man. Besides, you started this thing,” Artemis said this last bit sheepishly. An apology, but moreover a return of his question to her.

“I seem to remember a particularly witty blonde freshman giving me shit for faceplanting at my first cross country meet long before any action on my part,” Wally commented. Artemis crinkled her nose.

“Oh, that counts? C’mon, I was like that with everyone back then.”

“It was different.”

“Don’t flatter yourself.”

“No, I mean. For me, it was different.”

“Why’s that?”

Wally froze at the question. The answer was simple; three little words exchanged the world over. No, not those three big words you may be thinking of but a precursor. That simple little ‘like’, the hope and possibility of it. Artemis rolled to her side, perhaps surprised at his silence. The pair sat face to face, legs hanging awkwardly over the edge of dock into the muggy air above the lake.

“Stupid question. It’s always different with us, isn’t it?” Artemis near whispered the words, as if she feared the boy actually hearing them yet could not keep them in her anymore. Wally stared at her, spellbound. He moved a hand across the dock, covering one of hers.

If time moved slower – or if Wally moved quicker – there would be more to tell of these two. Well, more was to be told, but of this scene there was nothing. Kaldur wandered by and the pair split apart so fast Wally nearly catapulted over the side. When Artemis arrived back at the girls’ cabin, she found Zatanna lying in wait for her.

“Are you mad?” Her younger friend asked, her face pinched. Artemis shrugged.

“It’s just kind of lame of you, Zee. I mean, I’d tell you if I started dating Wa-er-someone,” Artemis maneuvered around her friend and flopped on a bed. "But I'm not mad. He's cute, you're cute together, your babies would be cute, but please use a condom because I don't want to have to deal with that for another five years at least."  
  
Zatanna shrieked and Artemis smiled devilishly.   
  
“Good night, Zatanna,” Artemis said.

* * *

 

“Thank you for asking me to walk with you. It’s very nice out,” Megan commented cordially as they approached her cabin. Next to her, Conner grunted a ‘you’re welcome’. Megan struggled to ask him a question that had been on her mind since their arrival, yet found no inoffensive way to ask. Yet the boy seemed hard to upset, despite his sullen nature, so she took a chance. “Why were you so fast to answer Artemis this morning? Did you…Do you like her?”

“I don’t know her,” Conner answered. “She runs around with the kids who talk in class but still have good grades. I’m not… I don’t run around with anyone.”

“You didn’t answer my first question,” Megan pointed out gently, her face warming as she did. Conner shrugged.

“Lots of kids at school think I’m weird or bad. Didn’t want them thinking you were like that,” Conner explained. Megan paused, gathering courage. Then, with a slight rise onto her toes, she kissed the boy on his cheek.

“You’re not bad, you’re sweet,” she commented before stepping onto the cabin’s porch. Conner touched the spot she had kissed and smiled.

“Don’t want them thinking I’m like that,” he joked. Megan bit her lip and laughed before slipping into her cabin.

* * *

 

“You’re still mad at him?” Artemis asked Wally, who had conspiratorially sat across from her instead of next to Dick. Wally shrugged and Artemis laughed. “C’mon, if Zatanna and I can talk it out in less than five minutes, can’t you two just like cry on each other’s shoulders or whatever and be done with it?”

“Is that what you think we do?”

“You aren’t denying it,” Artemis pointed out, motioning to him with her fork. Now, if gravity was different, this story would be entirely different. Firstly, people would probably fly or something. But secondly, what happened next would not have occurred. The beans on her fork flew from the fork across the table. Now, as you will remember, Wally was sitting across the table. Thus, the beans hit Wally square in the face.

“Really?” Wally asked the awestruck Artemis. As he grabbed his own beans, Artemis ducked under the table. His projectiles hit the back of Zatanna’s head. Now, next to her Dick sat. He assumed that his friend intended these beans for him and reacted as anyone would. He chucked his green beans towards Wally. Unfortunately, the green beans flew off-course and landed on Megan and Conner’s plates. The pair had mashed potatoes.

“Shit,” Artemis whispered, with a giggle.

By the time Kaldur, Jade and Roy walked in, the entire mess hall was covered in food, as were the camp counselors. Jade burst into laughter, before tugging Roy out to let Kaldur ‘take care of the children’. Kaldur simply looked about and decreed that the group would have to clean the room before shaking his head tiredly and walking back out. Silence filled the room for a moment before Megan giggled.

“Is that mad for him?” She asked. Next to her, Conner cracked a smile. Slowly, the others began to laugh as well, until the entire group was doubled over. As they got ahold of themselves, Zatanna, Dick and Conner headed to the supply closet to find cleaning supplies, while Megan went into the kitchen to put away the remaining food – which was in fact just one roll and a small pre-packaged square of Jello.

* * *

 

Artemis turned to Wally, eyes lit happily as she did. He looked at her a moment before he moved his hand to her cheek and brushed a chunk of potato off her. She laughed, blushing at the action.

“I think Dick took that as a really elaborate apology,” Wally commented softly.

“Don’t talk about your stupid best friend when you’re about to kiss me,” Artemis said. Wally’s eyes bugged and he opened his mouth to comment but Aremis closed the gap before he could. The pair could have – and perhaps would have – stayed like that for a time but the group that had left in search of cleaning supplies returned then. Luckily, you should know that the pair had many a chance to kiss and tease and all the rest that comes from being a couple. In fact, you could even say they had forever. But at this moment in time, they were interrupted by their friends.

“I knew it!” Zatanna crowed, grabbing Dick’s arm. Next to the pair Conner looked amongst them confusedly.

“Is this new?” He pointed to Wally and Artemis. On their nod, he made a face. “The rest of the school thinks you guys have been dating since sophomore year.”

* * *

 

If you had told Zatanna Zatara that her best friend would be dating Wally West, she would have simply replied with a smirk and knowing grin. Likewise, if you had told Megan Morse that she would start her senior year with friends and a blossoming something with a cute boy, she would have blushed and commented on how new places meant good things or some such thing. Life’s funny that way.

 


End file.
